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OK, T-Hawk, you've put a guy hunting instead of the agriculture like regoarrarr did in his first game. I'll leave the agriculture spot free for your next turn for you to correct this 
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The cards in the bottom right are listed from most expensive (4) to least (1). When one is bought they shuffle right and are replaced from the left. You can spend any resource except food to buy them, but it is most efficient to spend wood, since wood is the cheapest. the cards get you an immediate benefit (at the top of the card) and a points benefit at the end of the game (at the bottom), check the rules if you want to know what a certain one does
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sooooo Wrote:OK, T-Hawk, you've put a guy hunting instead of the agriculture like regoarrarr did in his first game. I'll leave the agriculture spot free for your next turn for you to correct this
Civilization player says that food comes from the green grasslands, not the brown blocky cottages.
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Ok, where in the world did you get 288 points from?
I'm up for another if you're still awake in your time zone?
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Well, I did get a lot of cards .
Have to go to bed now, so I can't play another. Hope you enjoyed it.
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I do like it. What took me a while is how you pay for cards. I thought the upper half of the card was the *cost*, so you pay the food or tool or gold or whatever to get the card. I figured that out on round four or so, but then figured it was like Speicherstadt where you almost never want to pay 3 or 4 units for something. That is not correct.
The last mechanic I haven't grokked is how the tool numbers escalate. When do you get a 1 point tool and when does it escalate to a 2 or 3 point tool? Once I got a tool that said one use, how does that happen? And how do those count for the cards that multiply 2 points per tool or whatever - does that multiply by your entire tool total value?
I would like another game. I'm out all day tomorrow though so no live session just yet. We could play offline-PBEM style, with Kylearan too. It feels like another game that works better with more players so you concentrate more on building yourself than blocking the other guy.
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T-hawk Wrote:The last mechanic I haven't grokked is how the tool numbers escalate. When do you get a 1 point tool and when does it escalate to a 2 or 3 point tool? Once I got a tool that said one use, how does that happen? And how do those count for the cards that multiply 2 points per tool or whatever - does that multiply by your entire tool total value?
You have 3 slots for tools. The first 3 you get are 1-point tools, then the fourth turns one of your 1s into a 2. The points at the end of the game for toolmakers on the cards are calculated by adding together the numbers on the 3 tools you have. One-use tools are gotten from cards and are just that: use them once during a roll and then they are gone. They range between 2 and 4 in power and add that number to any dice roll.
Quote:I would like another game. I'm out all day tomorrow though so no live session just yet. We could play offline-PBEM style, with Kylearan too. It feels like another game that works better with more players so you concentrate more on building yourself than blocking the other guy.
I'd be up for that.
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I'd like to play Stone Age PBEM again too! From my two plays so far, I think I like playing it with 4 players better than with 3, but that's no strong preference (and it will slow down the game of course). If we decide to play with 4 players, I know regoarrarr wanted to play it again too.
I'd also be up for a live game whenever you find the time.
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Regarding Egizia, it looks like a strange game! I'm not sure yet I really like it, but would be up for a second game if there's interest. Some of the game mechanics I only figured out later, and found out I had completely mismanaged my construction crews at the end of turn 3. So before I have a final verdict on the game, I'd like to play it again knowing all rules and mechanics.
Why I find the game to be a bit strange (and maybe sooooo can correct me on some things):
- The feeding mechanic is very complex, with 3 different food types, the water ring, cards that can change the food types etc. And yet, I felt it didn't really play much of a role overall in the end and a less complex system would have serverd just as well.
- It felt a bit...chaotic. Even with only 3 players, I thought that you don't have much control over what you can get during the Nile phase, and I imagine with 4 players it's just about getting anything you can get at all, without much strategy involved. Stone Age is also about choosing which of the limited resources you want to have next, knowing you won't be able to get many of them, and yet I think you can go for a specific strategy more easily. Or maybe I haven't grasped Egizia fully yet?
- Is there a reason not to build on the Sphinx every turn, and buy as many cards there as you can? Overall you get one VP per stone spent everywhere, with some sites offering a minor bonus (move the market; control the majority of a pyramid role; bonus points for grave tiles at game's end). But on the Sphinx, the bonus seems to be higher in most cases, and you won't waste any construction workers because you can decide exactly how many stones you want to spend. So while I think it's no big deal if I miss one of the other building places, I feel I have to build on the Sphinx every turn. I don't like games where some things are obviously better than others, but maybe I'm seeing this wrong?
- Why I think you have to buy as many Sphinx cards as possible: Some of the cards seem to be just plain impossible to achieve (and you don't get not that many VPs for it even if you would). Overall the Sphinx cards don't seem to be balanced very well.
Anyway, if there's interest I'd be up for a second game.
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Kylearan Wrote:[*] The feeding mechanic is very complex, with 3 different food types, the water ring, cards that can change the food types etc. And yet, I felt it didn't really play much of a role overall in the end and a less complex system would have serverd just as well. I think it depends on how much of a role it takes. When you haven't advanced on the grain market then you are pretty desperate to set the weather to be able to feed as many workers as possible. But when you have reached the 1-penalty point per unfed worker then it's not much of an issue. Since the "good" building spots get you more than 1 point per stone (the pyramid, the graves and the sphinx) then it's a net gain to just keep expanding your workforce and pick up the food as an afterthought.
Quote:[*] Is there a reason not to build on the Sphinx every turn, and buy as many cards there as you can? Overall you get one VP per stone spent everywhere, with some sites offering a minor bonus (move the market; control the majority of a pyramid role; bonus points for grave tiles at game's end). But on the Sphinx, the bonus seems to be higher in most cases, and you won't waste any construction workers because you can decide exactly how many stones you want to spend. So while I think it's no big deal if I miss one of the other building places, I feel I have to build on the Sphinx every turn. I don't like games where some things are obviously better than others, but maybe I'm seeing this wrong?
I think this is a trap that many new players fall in to. Sphinx cards are obviously good, but many people take the sphinx slot and pass up on better spots that would get them more points over the game. For example, I think a quarry is worth passing the sphinx over, especially on the first 2 turns of the game. Also the two cards that get you workers once per round are invaluable and better than a sphinx. I think you want the sphinx definitely on the last 2 turns and probably on the 3rd turn. But I don't think it's a good idea to go there on the first turn and it's about 50:50 on the second turn.
The graves are very underrated by new players too. If you get 20 points worth of graves then you get 9 extra points, which equates to a very good sphinx card. Also, you get to move the grain (or stone) market, which is a large source of points if you go there every turn. In our game I didn't hit the graves very often because I had 3 sphinx cards that related to the obelisk.
And finally the bonus 6 points for building at every site is very good.
Quote:[*] Why I think you have to buy as many Sphinx cards as possible: Some of the cards seem to be just plain impossible to achieve (and you don't get not that many VPs for it even if you would). Overall the Sphinx cards don't seem to be balanced very well.
No, and this is a fault in the game. Some cards are nearly impossible to do unless you are playing with the full 4 players (I'm looking at you: All the graves are complete card). There is a lot of luck in what sphinx cards you draw, especially if you are only going to the sphinx with a strength 1 or 2 worker.
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